Book Reviews 713

doi:10.5860/crl.76.5.713

publications, all of which appear in chapter endnotes. The endnotes for two chapters, 
“Teaching Information Literacy” and “Evaluation,” are noteworthy for their omissions. 
In the case of the former, while attention was given to the ACRL Information Literacy 
Competency Standards for Higher Education, surprisingly there is no mention of the ACRL 
Task Force, which eventually produced the newly adopted Framework for Information 
Literacy in Higher Education. The Task Force’s work was still ongoing when this book 
was published; yet the failure to mention it strikes as a large oversight. Similarly, the 
chapter on evaluating and assessing liaison activities neglects to mention another recent 
ACRL project, The Value of Academic Libraries: A Comprehensive Research Review and Report. 

Throughout the book, the authors recognize that liaison duties vary considerably 
from library to library, and Fundamentals for the Academic Liaison describes a range 
of potential responsibilities. Many chapters draw on examples from case studies in 
the literature or from the authors’ experiences, including the unique attributes of the 
community college setting, to give readers concrete examples of how this variability in 
liaison work presents itself. The chapter on collection development best demonstrates 
the extent to which a liaison’s involvement will vary from one campus to another. 
Further contributing to the range of perspectives in the book are Moniz, Henry, and 
Eshleman’s professional experiences. According to the “About the Authors” section of 
the book, their job titles are director of library services, information services librarian, 
and instruction librarian, respectively. 

Because the book focuses on the need to foster relationships with members of the 
academic community, the authors are freed from the temptation to make excessive 
technology or software suggestions. The only two chapters that do spend considerable 
time recommending and explaining specific technologies are the “Online Tutorials” 
and “Library Guides” chapters. The remainder of Fundamentals for the Academic Liaison 
should age well even as the tools at our disposal and user preferences evolve. Indeed, 
this book’s most vital feature may be the fact that, rather than trying to exactly capture 
what a contemporary liaison librarian does, it strives to show how many of a liaison’s 
activities are underpinned by the librarian’s ability to develop collegial and collabora-
tive relationships with faculty, students, library colleagues, and others. One area of 
community interaction that received brief mention in the book yet may come to occupy 
an increasing share of the academic liaison’s time is the role of raising awareness about 
and soliciting contributions to institutional repositories. 

By being grounded in the daily practices of a librarian but not tied too strongly 
to fast-changing technology, the book succeeds in conveying the “fundamentals” 
referenced in its title. The division of the content into chapters on different aspects of 
a liaison’s duties makes it easy for the reader to pick and choose which segments to 
focus on. At 200 pages, Fundamentals for the Academic Liaison is also a relatively quick 
read from start to finish. With the exception of a few repetitive passages and a lack of 
sentence variety in some places, the book is easy to follow and well written. Practitio-
ners and MLIS students alike will benefit from this concise yet thorough treatment of 
the academic liaison librarian.—Michael R. Mitchell, Bethel University

Aaron Schmidt and Amanda Etches. Useful, Usable, Desirable: Applying User Experi-
ence Design to Your Library. Chicago, Ill.: American Library Association, 2014. 174p. 
Paper, $65.00 (ISBN: 978-0-8389-1226-3).

If one were to go to any bookseller’s website to find books on user experience, most 
likely they would get a long list of titles dealing with software and website design. 
Even including the term “library” would still result in a set of technology-oriented 
titles, albeit a much smaller set. One might expect, given the state of the literature, that 
a new title dealing with user experience would also be heavily focused on technology. 



714 College & Research Libraries July 2015

Luckily, that is not true in this case. Schmidt and Etches’ new book, Useful, Usable, 
Desirable: Applying User Experience Design to Your Library, steps beyond technology 
and examines the many ways in which user experience can be used to the interaction 
of users with the library. 

Although there is some theory in the book, this is really a book that is meant to be 
applied. After opening the book with several chapters that deal with foundational 
concepts associated with user experience analysis, and explaining various research 
techniques, the authors focus on different library touchpoints. These touchpoints are 
those many ways in which a user interacts with the library. Chapters specifically focus 
on areas such as physical space, service points, signage and finding one’s way, policies 
and customer service, and how people actually use the library. As one might expect, 
the longest chapter deals with the library’s online presence. 

Within each chapter, the topic is broken down into a series of key checkpoints 
that are to be examined to determine how well a library is doing with respect to user 
experience. For example, in the chapter on physical space, the authors encourage the 
reader to determine if the furniture meets the needs of the user or if people have easy 
access to power outlets. In the chapter on customer service, the consistency of service 
across the organization and how friendly and genuine the staff is are examples of key 
checkpoints. In some cases, things are dealt with, while in others people and behavior 
are dealt with. An explanation is given as to why the key checkpoint is important. It 
is at this point that the reader will find the real practical side of the book. The authors 
have created a way to score each checkpoint after the reader has done an assessment. 
The different research techniques explained at the beginning of the book are now 
interjected to assist in offering ways to conduct an assessment that is appropriate for 
the checkpoint that is being examined. This scoring process is followed by recom-
mendations on what a library can do to improve their score. In most cases, a number 
of suggestions are given to aid with this improvement.

The mentioned scoring system is an important part of the book. Each chapter is set 
up so that the library can score up to 100 points across the checkpoints covered in the 
chapter. To assist the reader, an appendix is provided that lists the checkpoints and 
the maximum score one can earn for each. There is no clear explanation as to why one 
checkpoint is worth 25 points in a chapter whereas another one is worth five. In addi-
tion, figuring out what your score will be for an checkpoint is very ad hoc and soft at 
times. The authors do assign a difficulty ranking to each checkpoint that is meant to 
help the reader gauge the level of difficulty, skill, and time associated with address-
ing a checkpoint, either in assessing or changing the issue. The authors use one, two, 
or three stars for the difficulty ranking. While reading about each checkpoint, it does 
become clear how challenging it might be so the stars are useful. Yet, in chapter 4, 
each checkpoint has a score of 25 points, although there are checkpoints with one star 
and others with three. 

There are a variety of other elements that the authors include in the book. Some 
chapters have tips in sidebars, and most chapters have additional readings listed at 
the end. Radar graphs are also provided in the appendix to allow the reader to chart 
out the results of the different broad touchpoints covered in the book. This allows a 
library to see in which areas they are the strongest. 

The general nature of the book does allow it to be used by academic libraries. It 
does cover many potential areas a library might want to examine to better understand 
where user experience needs to be improved. The authors provide many interesting 
suggestions on how to make some of the changes needed to increase one’s score. Taken 
holistically, academic libraries of all levels will find this book useful as a good starting 
point.—Mark E. Shelton, Harvard University